Abstracts
Process and Form, Work and Place
Richard Sennett
Image Construction in Pre-Modern Cities
Julian Beinart
The idea of cities' creating images to market themselves is almost automatically
linked to modern ideas of competition and to the availability of print
and electronic means. This implies that pre-modern cities did not need
to differentiate themselves in order to attract outsiders, that they did
not compete, and that there was no system of image dissemination. It seems
to propose the essential differentness of cities over time, and to take
a schismatic rather than a diachronic view of urban history. This contribution
will argue against this position by examining city image construction and
distribution in early medieval times. The emphasis will be on the pilgrimage
network to holy shrines in three major religions, on situations where religion
and commerce come together, and where the making of purposeful city images
serves to magnetize outsiders as well as to boost internal regard.
Tales of Manhattan: Mapping the Urban Imagination Through Hollywood
Film
Henry Jenkins
Emerging during an important phase of urbanization, the American cinema
offered what Michel de Certeau would describe as "spatial stories"
which help to explain both to city dwellers and those in the hinterland
what it is like to live in the modern metropolis. Specifically, the essay
will concentrate on the tension between the desire to construct a totalizing
or panoramic account of the city and the desire to tell the particular
experiences of an individual character. I will consider the ways that Ferdinand
Tonnies' distinction between Gemeinschaft and Geiselschaft proves useful
for thinking about the narrative principles which have structured Hollywood
films drawn from a broad array of genres (comedy, the musical, film noir,
science fiction, melodrama) and time periods (from the silent cinema to
the present).
The City in Cyberspace: Representation of Community and Place
Thomas J. Campanella and
Anne Beamish
This paper, in two parts, explores representations of the city in cyberspace
and new media culture. It is structured about a core paradox regarding
the city and digital technology. That is, we have configured new media
technology to function both as a mechanism of retreat from the city, as
well as a device with which us to create sophisticated city-like constructs
in the new cultural space of the Net.
The paper begins by demonstrating that new media technology has displaced
many of the traditional functions of the city, enabling a wide range of
urban activities to occur outside the limits of the city. The new ability
to remotely engage the city and its "information bandwidth" is
scrutinized in light of historic antiurbanism in America. That the city
is a moral hazard, and the pastoral countryside life's ideal setting, is
one of our most durable national fables. By using images and evocations
in advertisements, gaming environments, the writings of leading futurists,
and cyberpunk fiction, it will be shown that distrust of the city is a
theme adequately represented in new media culture.
At the same time, new media technology has provided a whole new cultural
and social space (the cyberspace of the Net), in which we have created
virtual simulacra of the built city. The paper contends that the creation
of these digital spaces is not a new phenomenon but rather a continuation
in our history of attempting to design and create new communities and worlds.
What is new, however, is the medium - a non-spatial medium that surprisingly
often incorporates spatial qualities, literally and metaphorically. It
traces the evolution of "virtual communities" from simple, text-based
MUDs and MOOs to the more sophisticated, 3D visual environments of Alphaworld
and Planet9, and ends by examining how the city is represented in these
digital worlds, as well as the success of these environments from an urban
design perspective.
Rating Place-Ratings
John de Monchaux, MIT
Place-rating is a burgeoning and diversifying phenomenon. Entrepreneur
magazine rates cities according to whether they are "best for business."
Forbes will tell you which cities are "most improved." And the
original Places Rated Index has been joined by many others including a
recent book which guides you to "the best alternative, eclectic, irreverent
and visionary places." How are places 'rated' and how does this rating
impact the way they are imaged and perceived? How do these ratings measure
up against other characterizations and images of a place or city; how relevant
and useful do they seem to be? -- and to whom?; and what might it take
for a place's rating to change?
Place-Marketing: Using Media to Promote Cities
Briavel Holcomb
Increasingly, not only private developers but local governments and
public-private partnerships employ marketing consultants and devise advertising
and public relations campaigns to attract the investments, new residents
and tourists needed for economic growth and urban redevelopment. What strategies
do cities use to promote themselves? What media are used (e.g., print advertisements,
videos, websites, PR packages, in-flight magazine articles) and what ideological
and rhetorical devices are used to communicate these image-messages? What
are the roles of culture and the arts, of trophy architecture and of professional
sports in urban image building in the late twentieth century? What parts
of the city and which populations are included? Where are the silences?
PART II.
Imaging Cities: Opportunities for Urban Designers
Negotiating Conflicting Images
Eugenie Birch
The Imaging and Re-imaging of places is never without controversy. In
most cases, there are multiple contending images about what places could
or should be, and corresponding conflicts over who should be empowered
to control the destiny of such places. The built environment often serves
as the flashpoint and symbol for larger power struggles, with roots in
class, race, and gender inequalities. Who are the principal players involved
in contested images? What are the mechanisms for changing an urban image?
Are these mechanisms themselves undergoing a change? Who benefits from
changes in urban images, and what can urban designers and planners do to
make it more likely that benefits will be widely shared? What roles do--
or can-- or should-- urban designers and planners play in the re-imaging
process?
Fabricating Heritage Narratives: Locale, Region, Nation
David Lowenthal
Every level in society experiences the need to instill or strengthen
communal identity and participation, and this has engendered the ubiquitous
creation of heritage narratives and designs. Such designs and narratives
draw selectively from actual and fantasized pasts, reshaped to be made
useful to the imagined future. This chapter discusses why such needs arise
and what uses they serve, how particular themes come to be emphasized,
and the benefits and burdens they entail at local, regional, and national
levels. It stresses the conflicts often aroused by such theming, especially
when it is seen to involve falsifying history or favoring some elements
of the public to the disadvantage of others. Examples will range from public
art and architecture to historic sites and theme parks in both urban and
rural locales.
Designing Local and Regional Heritage Narratives
Dennis Frenchman
Throughout the United States and elsewhere, a wide variety of industrial
landscapes have fallen into dis-use and disrepair. Which kinds of efforts
to resuscitate them have been most successful, and on what terms? Can the
construction of design-enhanced narratives give new value to economically
obsolete places, transforming them into centers of heritage interpretation,
historic preservation, and (it is hoped) economic development. How are
media used to market design and consolidate desired place-narratives? How
does one come to terms with the "Disneyfication" charge? How
does one assess the merits of a "themed environment"?
Re-imaging the Rust Belt: The New Cleveland Campaign
Edward Hill, Patricia Burgess, and Ruth Durack
The reputation of individual cities, and districts within them, often
undergoes change, whether positive or negative. This chapter investigates
the print media coverage of a series of mega-projects ("gorilla projects")
that have captured the attention of downtown development leaders in Cleveland.
It pays special attention to the planning process that has evolved around
these projects, and to the role played by the press. The paper will draw
on text and visual images from a variety of newspapers, and will be grounded
in interviews with key planners, developers, politicians and media personnel
It will focus on three downtown projects: Browns Stadium, the Waterfront
development plan of 1997-1998, and the Lower Euclid Corridor Development
plan of 1997. Several questions will be engaged: how much of urban image
change has to do with urban design and development, and how much is it
grounded in other kinds of efforts (such as public relations)? What is
the role of flagship urban development projects in city-marketing? Are
there new mechanisms for civic boosterism?
Architectural Mega-Projects in Asia: New City Images and New City Form
Larry R. Ford
The trend toward a global economy has been characterized by both increasing
levels of economic interdependence and cooperation and convergence in the
creation of urban form. In both the popular media and professional publications,
the image of the Asian city is no longer dominated by scenes of traditional
landscapes and teeming lanes. International work by architects, developers,
financiers, engineers, and others has meant that many Asian cities have
largely been rebuilt in recent decades and now bristle with some of the
tallest skyscrapers and most monumental shopping plazas in the world. The
export of architectural services from North America and Europe to Asia
has been an important dimension of both the global economy and the creation
of new types of cities to house the expansion of the global economy into
new regions. At least until the onset of the current economic crisis, Asian
projects constituted a significant percentage of the total work of many
American architectural firms. Within Asian cities, new types of urban form
have appeared as skyscraper-filled "midtowns" have emerged to
compete with traditional centers. This paper explores some of the pros
and cons of global architectural interdedepency as well as some of the
design and infrastructure problems involved in the creation of new "world
cities" in Asia.
Ephemera, Temporary Urbanism, and Imaging
J. Mark Schuster
Ephemeral, time limited events have become an increasingly important
element in the practice of city design and development. Whether or not
these interventions are intended for their imaging capabilities, they are
clearly understood in this way by local officials, citizens, and planners.
Most major cities and many smaller ones have begun to consciously program
their cities and their public spaces in an attempt to reinvigorate these
places and to enhance the appreciation of their city by their own citizens
as well as by the broader audience of individuals who might come to partake
of these ephemeral events. This chapter takes a wide ranging look at these
phenomena, examining both indigenous festivals which are particular to
a certain place, and non place-based festivals. It will also consider other
time-bound events and designations, such as the Olympic Games, and the
Council of Europe's Capitals of Culture Program. The broad array of examples
is intended to establish the breadth of the phenomenon and the factors
that contribute to "success" as measured in both economic and
social terms.
Inner Cities and Outer Cities
Dolores Hayden and Alex MacLean
Americans lack sharp visual and verbal vocabularies to analyze the vast,
urbanized cultural landscapes we currently call "suburban sprawl."
A voluminous but diffuse literature dealing with the American suburb often
separates it from the city. This chapter will attempt to sharpen the definitions
of suburbs, constructing a new historical typology of suburban development,
illustrated with aerial photographs. It will also situate the development
of "suburb" and "suburban sprawl" as concepts in the
context of visual images and stereotypes derived from print media and television.
Also, it will reflect on the value and perspective of aerial photography
as a medium for description and analysis.
The Images of Commonplace Living in Modern City Regions
Judith Martin and Sam Bass Warner, Jr.
In many cases, citizens of the fringe seem to have abandoned concern
and collective responsibility for the well-being of the old core city.
How do those who dwell in various neighborhoods in the city-region (inner
city, old inner-ring suburbs, and new growing suburbs) construct region-oriented
lives? How do media representations and urban design place-making efforts
contribute to more powerful metropolitan imagery? To what extent is it
desirable or possible to enhance the collective identity and shared purpose
of metropolitan regions?
III. Conclusions:
New Directions for Designing the Mediated City
City-Imaging After Lynch
Sam Bass Warner, Jr. amd Lawrence Vale |
